News
A 48-hour non-stop event to address the design and development of digital games will be held at the Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro. The Global Game Jam initiative occurs simultaneously in 108 countries and students, players, industry practitioners and hobbyists from all over the world will be challenged to push their creative boundaries and code. Registering is open until January 15th, 2019.
Beyond the GameJam, five game-related workshops will also take place in DeCA : 1. Game Programming in Unity3D [Programação de Jogos em Unity 3D] (lectured by Mário Vairinhos); 2. Introduction to Pygame [Introdução ao PyGame] (lectured by Diogo Gomes); 3. ‘I want to learn Unity’ : Introduction to Unity3D in practice [‘Quero aprender Unity’: Introdução ao Unity 3D na prática] (lectured by Tânia Ribeiro); 4. Character animation: from paper to screen [Animação de personagens: do papel ao ecrã] (lectured by Gonçalo Gomes); and 5. Developing ‘Visual Novels’ using Unity3D [Desenvolvimento de ‘Visual Novels’ em Unity3D] (lectured by Liliana Vale Costa).
To join this Global Game Jame, register in the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/rz4yizVCRmS40i8t2
Further information can be obtained by sending an email to : ggjua2019@gmail.com
The PhD student Filipe Moreira, from the doctoral programme Multimedia in Education, was awarded the Best Pitch for session VII of the Research Summit.
The pitch entitled “Internet of things in Educational contexts:Technologies, potentialities, challenges and paradigm shifts” was honoured for the scientific quality, structure and organization of the presented work.
The pitch presented by Filipe shared insights of the broader research that is been conducted under is PhD studies PAprICa – Enhancing Learning with the Internet of Things.
Professor Joseph Straubhaar, from the University of Texas at Austin, while visiting Portugal, toke the opportunity to better know the University of Aveiro and DigiMedia Research Centre.
DigiMedia research Centre guided Professor Joseph Straubhaar in to our Research Ecosystem (people, process, research results) fostering the connection for future collaborative work.
In addition, DigiMedia had the pleasure to receive Professor Vicente Gosciola. In this short visit, Professor Vicente Graciola lectured two open classes: “Audiovisual Volumetry: A new approach in the field of Audiovisual Communication” and “Transmedia production: beyond the mettre en scène e mise en scène”.
In the 28th and 29th November University of Aveiro hosted the open forum Research Summit 18 under the theme Social Responsibility of Higher Education Institutions & Research.
Research summit 2018 aim, was to promoteand foster important discussion among the University of Aveiro research community and to enable collaborations to advance the state of the art and empower the research efforts.
In this context DigiMedia Research Centre was widely represented. In the Round Table under the theme “Perspective about research, impact and social responsibility of higher education institutions” DigiMedia Research Center was presented by is scientific coordinator Professor Fernando Ramos. At the Session 5- CENTER – Community-led Networks for Territorial Innovation DigiMedia Researcher Paula Alexandra Silva presented an oral presentation under the scope of “Exploring the potential of digital media in community-led territorial innovation: preliminary findings”. In addition, several DigiMedia PhD students presented their work in the parallel pitch sessions.
On november 22, the DigiMedia Research Centre and AlticeLabs (with the support of the American Corner at UA) celebrated the World Usability Day. An electrifying talk presented by Santosh Basapur – lecturer and planning coordinator for human factors and systems design at IIT Institute of Design in Chicago – capture the attention of the audience, in the morning.
In the afternoon, Santosh Basapur made a visit to Altice Labs. In an informal conversation, he discussed topics related to User Experience and Media, namely a more immersive experience with Television.
The talk “Role of usability in Systems Thinking” is available here.
Within the scope of the priorities established for the consolidation of the National Scientific and Technological System, high priority was given to the advanced training of human resources in science and technology, seeking to strengthen productive collaborations among higher education institutions, R & D institutions and companies. In this context, the FCT decided to propose the extension, by one edition, of FCT Doctoral Programs approved under the National Competitive Financing of PhD Programs FCT of 2012 and 2013 that, on September 1, 2018, were fully implemented or in the process of being fully implemented.
The Doctoral Programme in Multimedia in Education falls under the above-mentioned conditions with regard to the execution of the approved editions, and will benefit from a funding of 6 PhD fellowships for an additional edition of this program. The funding for these scholarships must begin, mandatorily, during the year 2019.
SEDUCE 2.0 – Senior Citizen Use of Comunication and Information in miOne online community
Some studies highlight the benefits of using ICT in later age: social support; decrease in the feeling of loneliness; improvement of the mental state, increase in quality of life and reinforcement of self-concept. However, there are barriers to the use of ICT by seniors, such as the fear of using computer equipment; cost and functional sustainability; biopsychosocial changes related to ageing; complexity of the interfaces. SEDUCE 2.0 project aims to:
(a) assess the impact of psychosocial variables and sociability on older adults through the use of ICT in the context of the online community miOne (www.mione.pt);
(b) contribute to the growing development of the community miOne with the active participation of seniors. The study will be conducted in a context of co-presence, faceto- face, and in the context of the online community miOne. The focus groups will involve.
June -2018 – may 2021
228 124,42 €
221 624,42 €
National Public – FEDER/Compete 2020/Portugal 2020
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031696
Games and Transmedia
Ana Veloso
Sónia de Almeida Ferreira; Liliana Filipa Vale Costa; Tânia Cristina Ferreira Ribeiro; Óscar Emanuel Chaves Mealha; Carlos Manuel das Neves Santos; Vania Baldi; Pedro Manuel Reis Amado; Liliana Xavier Marques de Sousa; Maria Fernanda da Silva Martins; Fernando António Dias Zamith Silva
Instituto Politécnico de Viseu; Universidade do Porto
Avaulable at: [1]
LOCUS – playfuL cOnneCted rUral territorieS – the Internet of Things in the intergenerational creative production of cultural georeferenced contents
LOCUS is a multidisciplinary project with the goal of co-design, develop and evaluate an IoT system and understand its potential to support playful intergenerational engagement in creating and exploring cultural contents and learning about Cultural Heritage of rural territories from the Centre Region of Portugal, namely Amiais Village, in Sever do Vouga. By implementing a playful and immersive Cultural Heritage Tourism approach to foster Amiais’ cultural and socioeconomic development, LOCUS will allow visitors to have immersive gamified experiences, by using a wearable device (bracelet) and their smartphones to interact with augmented everyday things around the village and to collaboratively learn about Amiais’ culture and produce and share multimedia georeferenced contents.
july2018 – july2021
231.150,27 €
231.150,27 €
National Public – FEDER/Compete 2020/Portugal 2020
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029228
Media Convergence & Cyberculture
Lídia Oliveira Silva
Ana Carla Miguéis Amaro (Co-IR); Vania Baldi; Nelson Troca Zagalo;Rui Pedro Costa Rodrigues; Ana Luísa Rego Melro
Instituto de Telecomunicações – Aveiro (Shahid Mumtaz); Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Rui Rodrigues)
Not available….coming soon
VoluntAge4Seniors2.0 – Service that provides help to older adults from a group of volunteers
VoluntAge4Seniors 2.0 aims to develop a service that provides help to older adults in specific tasks such as a simple household maintenance or accompany in a visit to the doctor, by offering support of a volunteer. The service combines the development of a TV Application to older adults with voice interaction and a web platform to manage the requests and the volunteers.
july -2018 – may 2019
19791 €
19791 €
National Private – AlticeLabs
Alticelabs@UA
Social ITV; e-Health & Wellbeing
Rita Santos
Researchers: Ana Isabel Martins; Mário Rodrigues; Ciro Martins; Hilma Caravau
Grantees: Joana Beja; Pedro Miguel
IEETA; Associação Nacional Gerontólogos
Not available….coming soon
Videobite – Stimulating User Engagement Through Newsworthy Stories Based on Short Online Videos
This project aims to research and develop news engagement strategies by means of the development of a free on-line platform that allows users to create and share news video remixes on social networks. Users will be able to create their own online videos (U.G.C.) based on audio-visual content made available by the Cofina journalists in the platform.
may -2018 – june 2019
~200.000€ €
45.150€
International Private – Digital News Innovation Fund [1]
VideoBite (Round 3) [2]
Social ITV
Pedro Almeida
Researchers: Pedro Beça, Jorge Ferraz de Abreu;
Grantees: Carlos Silva, Arthur Pedrozo.
Cofina, Google, Brightpixel
Available at: [3]
©2018 Google LLC All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC.
FlavourGame – Participate and Change, Playing with textures and flavours
FlavourGame is a project in the intersections of arts, technology, communication and health. It is conceived by an interdisciplinary team, and intends to reach kids aged 10-11 yers old for raising discussion and sense-making around the theme of nutrition (food choices). In concrete, we will develop a new serious game that invite real foods – with their flavors, aromas and texturas- into play, through an innovative tripartite communication model: based on conversation, participation and rich tangible interactions. This game will be conceived for an hybrid board game- combining a physical board and a tablet- through a user-centred-design approach, where kids are given voice and space for their own perspectives. At the end, players will be able to access a whole new social and impactful experience, just by the action of a “click”.
july 2019 – june 2022
235.933,14 €
194.683,12 €
National Public – FEDER/Compete 2020/Portugal 2020
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031024
Games & Entertainment
Nelson Zagalo – Researcher in Charge (RC)
Mário Vairinhos – Co-Researcher in Charge (Co-RC)
Nelson Zagalo; Mário Vairinhos; Patrícia Oliveira
Universidade do Minho; Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Gamers4Nature: Game creation tools to promote Environment and Biodiversity preservation awareness
The project aims to promote knowledge about environmental preservation in young people through their participation in game creation processes. Gamers4Nature proposes to develop a toolkit to support game creation for mobile devices and, with the help of schools, to apply it with the aim of encouraging young people of multiple skillsets and backgrounds, to participate in game jams events. The project also proposes the creation itself of game jams events with specific characteristics and provides access to an open repository with the games developed, to facilitate knowledge about environment and biodiversity concerns.
june -2018 – may 2021
237.984,41 €
237.984,41 €
National Public – FEDER/Compete 2020/Portugal 2020
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031047
Games & Entertainment
Pedro Beça
Ana Veloso, Rita Santos
Associação Bioliving
Not available….wet
